Join me today for Episode 998 of Bitcoin And . . .
Topics for today:
- MSTR Buys $5.4 Billion Bitcoin
- Battery Finance and BTC Collateralized Loans
- Cantor Fitzgerald Mulls $2 Billion BTC Lending
- Bitmain ASICS Held by US Customs
#Bitcoin #BitcoinAnd
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https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/newmarket-capital-launches-battery-finance-bitcoin-collateralized-loan-strategy-
https://decrypt.co/293359/cantor-fitzgerald-plans-2-billion-bitcoin-lending-program-via-tether-report
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[00:00:00]
David Bennett:
Good morning. This is David Bennett, and this is Bitcoin and, a podcast where I try to find the edge effect between the worlds of Bitcoin, gaming, permaculture, podcasting, and education to gain a better understanding of all. Edge effect is a concept from ecology describing a greater diversity of life where the edges of 2 systems overlap. While species from either system can be found at the edge, it is important to note there are species in the overlap that exist in neither system, and that is what I seek to uncover. So join me in discovering the variety of things being created as Bitcoin rubs up against other systems. It is 12:48 PM Pacific Standard Time. It's late today on 25th November 2024.
This is episode 998 of Bitcoin and only 2 more to go. 2 more to go until the big one thousand, but this show is probably gonna be a little bit shorter today considering that everybody is on, you know, Thanksgiving break and all. So, let's get into it with MicroStrategy expanding their Bitcoin holdings with 4 no. $5,400,000,000 in purchases. Holy shit. Josh O'Sullivan, Cointelegraph, let's begin with this one. MicroStrategy, a publicly traded business intelligence software firm, reported a substantial expansion of its Bitcoin holdings in a filing today, November 25th, where it disclosed that it has acquired about 55,000 Bitcoin. Again, 55,000 Bitcoin for $5,400,000,000, and they did so between the dates of November 18th and yesterday, 24th, at an average price of $97,862 per coin.
And of course, the minute the news hit, sell the news. Why we're at $94,739. It's amazing how sell the news works. I'm never going to understand it, but there it is. The purchase was funded through the proceeds from the recent equity and debt offerings according to the filing. And the latest purchase has pumped MicroStrategy's total BTC holdings to a massive $386,700 BTC acquired at a cumulative cost of 29 $21,900,000,000 or an average price of $56,761 per coin. The firm's continued buying spree close to BTC's new high near $100,000 suggest that it expects further growth in Bitcoin's value driven by rising institutional adoption and optimism over potential pro crypto legislation under the incoming United States administration of president-elect Donald Trump.
MicroStrategy has used the funds from the private offering of 0% convertible senior notes, which is due 2029, and its ongoing at the market equity program. The notes offering, which finished on November 21st, raised a total of $2,970,000,000 alongside the firm selling 5,597,000 shares under its at the market equity program to generate a further $2,460,000,000 in net proceeds. These funds combined provided the liquidity to support the firm's continued aggressive acquisition of BTC. And as of November 24th, MicroStrategy reported $12,800,000,000 in remaining capacity under the at the market program.
In its form 8 k disclosure, MicroStrategy detailed the use of proprietary performance metric bitcoin yield, which measures the percentage change in the ratio of BTC holdings to assumed diluted shares outstanding. And as of yesterday, November 24th, the company reported a BTC yield of 59.3%, up from 35.2 at the end of the Q3. Put in layman's terms, this metric measures the firm's focus on maximizing shareholder value through its Bitcoin acquisitions and making BTC the primary driver of its financial strategy going forward. Similar Scientific, not to be outdone, said that it has acquired 297 BTC for $29,100,000 between the same dates or essentially November 18th through November 22nd, increasing its total holdings to 1,570 BTC purchased at an average price of $75,000 per coin. The firm expanded its ATM or at the market equity program by a further $50,000,000, doubling its offering capacity to a 100,000,000 with 50,000,000 already generated through gross prots proceeds. And Similar Scientific reported a b or a year to date BTC yield of roughly the same as MicroStrategy, 58.4 percent as of November 22nd, highlighting its focus on using BTC as a treasury asset.
So both of these firms let's see. With MicroStrategy's BTC yield is 59.3%. And remember, their average purchase price is, like, $59,000 per coin. Now we go down here to similar scientific, they have a 58.4% b, BTC yield on a year to date average, but their average purchase price was $75,000. Now think about that. That is a hell of a delta between those two particular average coin purchasing prices, and yet they're almost identical in their BTC yield. That's probably something that we should look at as more and more firms move forward. What it suggests to forms firms moving forward, to me, is that it doesn't matter what you buy the shit at. It does not matter what you buy it at. You're probably going to end up with this KPI metric of 58 anywhere between 58 and, or 55 60% on a BTC year to date yield. It's kind of kind of amazing, honestly.
Alright. Let's get into this one. New Market Capital Launches Battery Finance, the Bitcoin collateralized loan strategy. Okay. This was when I started out the show on Friday with that piece from CNBC, it was these people. And Frank Korva is going to tell us a little bit more about what's going on with it out of Bitcoin Magazine. New Market Capital recently closed the 1st investment deal for its new battery finance loan strategy, which enables borrowers to incorporate Bitcoin into long term financing structures as collateral. On November 7th, Newmarket Capital, an institutional capital manager, and registered investment adviser completed a refinancing for the Bank Street Court Apartment in Old City, Philadelphia, PA or Pennsylvania.
The loan was collateralized by both the building and approximately 20 bitcoin. New Market Capital CEO Andrew Hans, yeah, Hans is excited about not only setting his company's new strategy in motion, but the symbolism of the deal. Quote, it's a building that is located less than half a block away from the First Bank of the United States. Philadelphia has had a lot of firsts and innovations over the years, and we're proud to contribute another one to that list, Hans told Bitcoin Magazine. Battery Finance enables Bitcoin to be used as 10% to 30% of the collateral for loans alongside traditional assets.
To bring this new strategy to life, New Market Capital partnered with 1031 to establish Battery Finance, a majority owned subsidiary of New Market Capital that utilizes bitcoin in financing structures. Unlike other lending companies that let clients borrow against bitcoin with the risk of liquidation in the event that bitcoin's price drops below a certain threshold, new market capital removes that risk and offers loan structures without mark to market trigger. Quote, as lenders, we are constructive on the long term value of bitcoin and comfortable recognizing bitcoin as collateral without mark to market risk, said Hans. Quote, we achieve this by incorporating Bitcoin as a component of a broader collateral package alongside traditional financeable assets.
In this way, we have improved our downside through the introduction of Bitcoin, an uncorrelated element, an asset that has had such a strong history of appreciation over time in the collateral package. Deals that employ this strategy can be structured differently. In some cases, a borrower can use Bitcoin that they're already holding as collateral for a loan, while in other cases, new market capital and the borrower purchase Bitcoin as part of the loan structure. The latter is how the loan for the Bank Street Corp building was structured. Quote, it's a $16,500,000 building, and we offered the building owner a $12,500,000 loan, explained Hans. Quote, the use of proceeds was to pay off the existing financing, which was $9,000,000 to provide them with approximately $2,000,000 of capital expenditures for certain improvements to the property that they wanted to make. With the remaining $1,500,000, we purchased just shy of 20 Bitcoin as part of our combined collateral package, end quote.
Unlike traditional loans, which often lock borrowers in with re prepayment penalties or a make whole, the Bank Street Corp Financing can be paid off at any time with no penalties. To allow for this outcome, the borrower and the lender align to share appreciation on the upside from the Bitcoin over the life of the loan. The longer the loan is outstanding, the greater the share of Bitcoin appreciation that vest for the borrower, incentivizing borrowers to take long term views on Bitcoin. Although the loan can be repaid at any time in the building released, the earliest that the Bitcoin could be wound down is 4 years in line with Bitcoin's 4 year rhythm.
The loan carries a single digit interest rate and has a maturity of 10 years. Hans, a Bitcoiner himself, understands that other Bitcoiners have low time preference that they prioritize future economic well-being over more immediate gratification. However, he acknowledges that there are limits to this approach, which is why New Market Capital created the battery finance strategy. Quote, the lowest time preference is not feasible for humans because we have a finite life. There's a point there's a point where we want to accomplish things with our lives. We want to grow our business or start a new business or just do the things that we all have a passion for, like opening up a maker space or a brewery or a bookstore, whatever the case might be. If you're just hodling the bitcoin, you're deferring those dreams, he added.
By offering this financial tool, we can essentially serve as a mechanism to transform those time preferences to bring forward the appreciation of the bitcoin by offering a significant amount of financing to accomplish whatever the real world goals borrowers have, he said. Battery Finance is currently focused on working with borrowers who are interested in acquiring or refinancing commercial properties. So not not homes and stuff like that. Not yet, anyway. Quote, for the time being, we're investing or inviting interest around loans that are, generally speaking, 10,000,000 to $30,000,000, which include 10 to 30 percent Bitcoin with 70% to 90% traditionally financeable income producing assets, explained Hans. And it's a tool for both asset owners that want to redenominate some of the equity in their existing portfolio into Bitcoin. And it's also a tool for Bitcoiners who want to obtain stable long term financing supported in part by their Bitcoin to acquire assets in the real world.
This way, they can generate income and accomplish their goals while remaining invested in bitcoin, end quote. In time, battery finance plans to service a broader range of customers. Yeah. Hopefully, they'll get into home loans and get some of this nonsense out of the way so that we can actually have, you know, homes again. I quote, we see broad applicability for this lending structure, including over time, to people that are at different phases of their Bitcoin savings journey. I hope that these kinds of products will develop into solutions that enable people to do things like finance a house or an automobile with their Bitcoin. Yeah. That's gonna have to happen, guys. Anyway, this is Frank Korver writing about the a little bit more in-depth about that piece that I brought you on Friday at the very beginning of the show. It was, it was mister Hans talking to, the guys over at, oh, with Squawk Box, I think, Joe Kernan's outfit. Anyway, if this gets into a situation where general retail can take advantage of it.
Wow. Because as if you didn't hear it. What they're doing is they're providing a loan and part of that loan goes to actually buy bitcoin in which case that bitcoin is also set as an asset against the loan itself. So as the bitcoin appreciates, that loan becomes less and less treacherous to service as time goes on, if and only if, of course, Bitcoin continues to rise. But since they've put a 4 year timescale on when you can actually liquidate the Bitcoin or somehow or another extinguish that portion of the collateral, then chances are really good you're going to see upside potential on these loans. So if instead of 10 to $30,000,000 as being sort of like the the boundaries that you can enter into this kind of financing deal, if that comes down to, you know, a few 100000, you know, half a1000000, 1,000,000, then if that's if, god, that's if real estate prices still stay as elevated as we've seen them. Then all of a sudden, you've got the entire retail market that's looking to buy a house that could take advantage of them making the loan, overextending that or bait not overextending the loan, but making more of a loan than it cost to purchase the house and then putting the rest into Bitcoin, which you then hold for 4 years and then service the debt as a normal as a normal mortgage.
Is that would be interesting to see because at that point, you've got you've got an you've got the outlet to allow retail into the market, but still I don't know. It's there's gonna be I I think it's going to produce a lot more BTC purchases if they do that. If they don't do that, that would honestly be kinda sad if they stay well. Oh, you know, plebs can't take advantage because plebs, generally speaking, are not gonna be doing financing between $10,030,000,000. That's for accredited investor type people, but whatever.
Let's get into this one. Cantor Fitzgerald, we're now doing this one from Decrypt. It's written by Vince d De Aquino. Cantor Fitzgerald is planning a $2,000,000,000 Bitcoin lending program via Tether. Right? So we're still talking about Bitcoin lending, but this time we're talking about stable coins. I've warned you about these things. Maybe Tether and USDC, I I can think of those as possibly being a little bit safer types of things to utilize if you're gonna have to utilize them. But understand, you're going to see a plethora of stablecoins jump into the market, and most of them are going to be just straight up scams. And you're going to lose your money if if you start playing around with it. So if you don't have to use stable coins, then don't. But Cantor Fitzgerald is going to do it.
The US Financial Services and Bond Trading Firm is reportedly discussing a multibillion dollar Bitcoin backed lending program with the help of Tether. The proposed program, excuse me, the proposed program would allow clients to borrow dollars using Bitcoin as collateral. Initially, the operation would begin with a $2,000,000,000 allotment, though it has the potential to expand as crypto sees more adoption, according to a Bloomberg report on Saturday. It's yet another step towards a symbiotic relationship between Wall Street and the crypto industry, which has deepened this year, particularly as an expected transition in crypto policy comes to the fore as Trump prepares to settle into the White House.
Bitcoin lending program, which is still in its early stages, would likely include multiple financial contributors alongside Tether, and Kantor is already recruiting staff for the initiative. The move comes as Kantor's chief, Howard Lutnick, was nominated as commerce secretary under president-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday and is reportedly preparing to divest his interest in the firm. Yeah. You'd have to. Otherwise, you're going to have ethics violations that you don't want to see. In a prepared statement following the nomination, Letnik said he intends to do so to comply with United States government ethics rules. There you go. Letnik's depart departure from key roles applies to his positions at Cantor, BGC, and something called Newmark. As Lutnick prepares to depart Cantor, pending senate confirmation, he plans to hand over the firm's Tether relationship to colleagues.
His son, Brandon, is cited as a possible candidate, per the Bloomberg report. It's It's an ethics violation, guys. Brandon previously interned at Tether Swiss operations and is now at Cantor, and he is said to have counted gold bars backing Tether's $660,000,000 gold backed token, which is called Tether Gold, during his internship. Oh, they're handing it off. He was an intern, ladies and gentlemen. He's ready to roll, I guess. Quote, the ratings assigned to Cantor, BGC, and Newmark Incorporate key person risk associated with Lutnick given his majority voting control, market relationships, close involvement in many other aspects of the businesses, and outsized influence on the firm's respective strategic directions, a commentary from Fitch Ratings claims.
Cantor already manages most of Tether's $132,000,000,000 in assets through its custody business, earning tens of 1,000,000 of dollars in annual fees. Notably, Kantor also required a 5% stake in Tether valued at $600,000,000 according to sources cited by The Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal report cites a statement issued from Lutnick's selection as commerce secretary where a spokesperson maintained that Tether's relationship with Kantor was entirely professional based on managing reserves, diminishing suggest or dismissing suggestions that Lutnick's political connections could influence regulatory actions.
The same report quotes Lutnick's statement at the Bitcoin conference in Nashville in July where he described his first meeting with Tether CFO Giancarlo Devesini. I basically told him the movie line. I said, show me the money, And we found every penny, and they had every penny, end quote. These statements point to what Tether had been struggling with over the years, proving that it does indeed have the reserves backing its stablecoin issuance following years, and I'm talking years, of skepticism from industry insiders and outsiders alike. A UN report released in January identified Tether's USDT as a prefer preferred choice for money launderers. That's right. While the US Treasury Department has asked Congress for new powers to block stablecoin transactions linked to illicit activities.
Tether has repeatedly refuted those claims, saying it instead provides support to law enforcement officials and policymakers to mitigate the use of its stablecoin for illicit activities. So there you go. Cantor Fitzgerald, god. Commerce secretary Lutnick is at the head of that thing right now. Of Course, he's not commerce secretary yet. He's gotta actually be confirmed. But these ties worry me, and it's not just Lutnick. I mean, it's Liberty Financial with Trump. It's like it is a whole basket of of potential ethics violations that are going to be scrutinized. No matter whether or not they're above board, it doesn't matter.
The the enemies of these people, of this administration, are definitely going to have a freaking heyday with shit like this. I mean and my my issue here really is this notion that he's gonna hand the whole thing off to his son, Brandon, an intern at some kind of Swiss company, and that that's going to make it okay. And, honestly, it's not going to make it okay. It's still going to be a situation where ethics probes are going to be all over these people to the point that they may not even be able to actually perform their functions. But as usual, we'll have to see. But right now, let's run numbers.
West Texas Intermediate Oil is down 3 points. Apparently, there is a ceasefire deal on the table between Israel and Palestine or Hamas or whoever it is that they're fighting today. Brent Norsey is likewise down 2.7% to $73.15. Natural gas doing what it does, it's going in the opposite direction. It's 5.8% of the upside and now stands at $3.31 per 1,000 cubic feet. Gasoline is down almost 3 full points, back to $2 a gallon. Gold struggling 3 points to the downside leaves it at $2,627.60 per ounce. Silver is down 3%. Platinum is down 3%, but copper is up a half. Palladium is down over 4% today. Biggest winner in ag is coffee, 1 and a half percent to the upside. Biggest loser looks like it's going to be wheat. 1 and a half to the downside. Live cattle is down a quarter, but lean hogs are up almost a half.
Feeder cattle, likewise, up almost a half. The Dow is doing well. 1% to the upside. S and P, point 3% to the upside. Nasdaq is up point 14, and the S and P Mini is up a point and a half. And as we see, Bitcoin is struggling probably because, for whatever reason, Michael Saylor bought a shit ton of Bitcoin. Because it's always sell the news, isn't it? Price $94,970 per coin leaves us with a paltry $1,880,000,000,000 market cap, and we can only get 35.9 ounces of shiny metal rocks with our 1 Bitcoin, of which there are 19,787,167.99 of.
And fees are minimal. 0.07 BTC taken in fees on average on a per block basis, and there are a mere 88 blocks. And it was down to, like, 39 blocks over the weekend. I was I was actually surprised and almost waiting for the mempools to clear, but they haven't. They've gone back up. There are 241,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear at high priority rates of 5 satoshis per vbyte. Low priority is gonna get you in at 1 satoshi per v byte. And mining hash rate is 754.8 x of hashes per second. It was up to almost 800 over the weekend, so we've come down quite a bit from there. And from Friday's show, go go Gensler, that was Bitcoin and episode 997.
I got itsy bitsy hodl with 5,000 sat says, hey, man. The guy in the clip is Andrew Hans of Battery Finance. It's a 1031 fund backed venture, which is using Bitcoin as collateral, merging of traditional finance and Bitcoin. Thank you, Itsy Bitsy HODL. I appreciate the information on that. FOMO Medtronic with 1,001 SAT says absolutely nothing. Graham with a 1000 says, thank you, sir. No. Thank you. Mutum 8 with a thousand says, money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods procured and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. And that is a direct quote from Anne Rand, most likely the money speech from Atlas Shrugged, if I had any if I had to guess.
God's death with 537 says thank you, sir. No. Thank you. Pies to play before 20 says thank you, sir. No. Thank you. And that's gonna do it for the weather report. Welcome to part 2 of the news you can use. Before we begin, I wanna ask you guys a favor. If you are out there and you appreciate ranchers and what they do, given you know, basically making sure that you've got high quality animal protein and animal fats on your table to feed yourself and your family, then do me a favor. Either give me a boostogram in in, for the show and make a statement as to, you know, like words of encouragement to ranchers because tomorrow night, I will be addressing a roomful of ranchers at the Whitman County Cattlemen's Association annual dinner. I've been invited to speak specifically on what's going on with the King Ranch.
If you don't know what's going on with the King Ranch, I invite you to go, listen to episode 943 of Bitcoin and entitled Ranch Wars, the King Ranch, where I talked to a lawyer for the King Ranch about their battle with the state of Washington's attorney general's office, the Department of Ecology, as well as the Department of Natural Resources. They're trying to destroy their multigenerational, 7 decade old ranch, and they're doing a pretty good job of it. So I've been asked to deliver remarks about that battle and what exactly is going on. I'd like to end that talk with a a few things from the plebs out there that let these guys know that they're not alone and that what they're doing, for us is is actually appreciated.
So either on Noster, hit me up. I've got a note out there that's requesting the very same thing. So go to my profile and you'll you'll, you know, scroll down and you'll see it there. Say, you know, because I wanna be able to give these guys a few remarks, and then at the end, I wanna be able to tell them, hey, here's some people that you've never met that you don't know, and here's what they're saying about how they appreciate what it is that you do, because everybody needs some encouragement now and again. So if you would do that, I would I would definitely appreciate that. Okay. Let's get into this one from the block. Jason Shubnell tells us something that's kinda weird about, what's going on with Bitmain.
Apparently, the United States customs has halted Bitmain ASIC imports amid speculation over sanctions according to a report. This doesn't actually sound very good, honestly. US Customs and Border Protection, at the request of the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, has been holding imports of Bitmain Antminer s 21 and t 21 series a six at ports across the country for up to 2 months. 7 US based mining companies have not been provided a clear reason for the delays or a timeline for the resolution, the report said. One source told BlockSpace that US Customs and Border Protection is charging daily holding fees, which have exceeded $200,000 for some firms.
The move does not appear to target other manufacturers like MicroBT or Canaan Miners. Bitmain is the largest ASIC designer and mining hardware manufacturer in the world at the time, and BlockSpace said industry speculation suggests that the holdups may be linked to scrutiny over chips supplied by Xiamen Softco, a company under investigation for potential US sanctions violations. Softco chips like the CV1835 are used certain amp miner models including the s 19. Softco was founded in 2019 by McCreazon, also the cofounder and CEO of Bitmain. Taiwan Semiconductor stopped supplying chips to Softco when the US Commerce Department began investigating whether TSMC had provided chips to Huawei, the information reported in October.
Oh, good lord. China based Huawei has been under US sanctions since 2020 due to national security concerns. And while no direct evidence links the importing halts to these investigations, block space source believes that f the FCC and the CBP may be inspecting shipments for restricted components. The block reached out to CBP for comment. The situation highlights growing tensions at the intersection of US trade policies and tech regulations. China based companies like Bitmain have dominated the mining hardware market, but president-elect Donald Trump has vowed to make the US a Bitcoin mining powerhouse, quote, it will be the policy of my administration to keep 100% of all the Bitcoin the United States government currently currently holds or acquires into the future.
This will serve, in effect, as the core of the strategic national Bitcoin stockpiled. It's been taken away from you. Well, that Bitcoin was actually taken away from several people, so I don't know exactly what you're talking about. Here's my that's the end of the article, but here's one of the concerns that I have. Although it's probably unfounded, but think about this. Are they inspecting these machines, or are they installing backdoors into these machines? They've been held these miners from Bitmain have been held at ports for 2 months, and they're charging the companies, like, $200,000 to hold them. So that's great. I can just decree that I'm gonna hold your shit and then charge you a holding fee for it. But while they're there, is it possible that they might be deinstalling certain chips from the motherboard of these miners and reinstalling chips that have some kind of backdoor, some kind of, yeah, like, surveillance tech attached to it. Who knows?
They but it may be unfounded because microbt and Canaan miners seem to be not affected. So maybe this whole thing is above board. Still, though, I think it's bullshit that they're charging the companies a holding fee for miners that they're not releasing. That's just another just just another way that government gets in our way. Okay. From my friend, Hoddlebod, he has released Flotilla, but this one is a write up from no bs bitcoin.com. Let's see what they have to say about what Flotilla is. It is a Discord like Nostril client for relay based communities. Okay? So that's the definition. Quote, I am pleased to announce the release of 0.1.0 of Flotilla, a new client for communities, announced hodelbond.
This project began as a NIP 29 client. And after 3 pull requests, lots of discussion, a podcast, and partial implementation, I decided to go my own way, said the developer. Flotilla does not support NIP 29 like chachichat or chachi.chat does. However, both clients offer features such as chat, join request, group metadata, membership management, moderation, and other related functionalities. Quote, the basic unit of a NIP 29 group is a random group ID string while the basic unit of a flotilla group is a relay itself, explained the developer in a blog post. Quote, I believe this design difference emerged in part of what we were attempting to build.
NIP 29 groups tend to be more Telegram like where groups function more like chat rooms and users join each one individually. On Flotilla on Flotilla, groups function more like Discord servers or Slack workspaces and users join an entire group of chat rooms at once, he added. If you want to try Flotilla, check out the following groups, nostertalk.orgorbucket. Let's actually, I'm gonna go to, nostertalk.org just to see what that thing looks like. Hold on. Let's let it come up. It may take a while. Time to get some coffee. And so if you wanna go check out flotilla dot social, the the actual flotilla itself, it is flotilla dot social, that is flotilla.social.
And Nostertalk isn't actually coming it's coming through, but it's not actually making any posts. So I'll come back to it and see if, if I let it spin for a little bit that, maybe it can collect me up some notes as to what's going on in that particular group, which is a relay based group. Okay? That's what's really important about Flotilla is that it's all about the relay and a stand alone relay that just on you know, basically is the collection point for all the people that wanna be part of a specific group. And I I honestly think that that kind of firewalling against different, relays and just having a hey.
I I can spin up a relay on my start 9 and just start a group. To me, this makes a lot of sense. It it it just does. Okay. So sat shoot has been released. It's version 0.2.0. It is a nip 60 wallet and nip 61 nutzaps. SatShoot is a free and open source freelance marketplace built on the Nostra protocol using the Nostra development kit. It allows users to hire freelancers for any type of job or earn SATs by offering their own freelance services. So I guess this is a replacement for Fiverr. SatShoot version 0.2.0 has been released with NIP 60 and NIP 61 in rendering of Nostra URIs announced 5.
And I don't know who 5 is, but like I said, this is probably a replacement for Fiverr. Quote, need a hand in development? Have technical issues to sort out? Post it on sat shoot, then share as a short text note. Tap into Global Nostra Talent to get your job done by the best bidders. All feedback welcome. Keep pushing for the freedom economy, added the developer. Here's the key features. There's no middleman. Your Nostra Keys, your contracts, your deals, your servers. It respects your relays of choice, and then it says something about c outbox model. There's web of trust, which uses your Nostra based social network to fight, scammers and spammers, build an unstoppable reputation on Nostra as a freelancer.
So it does look like this is a direct replacement for Fiverr using the Nostra protocol, so you might wanna give it a shot here. Let me see. It is satshoot.com. I'm gonna go over to this one. Yeah. Satsh0ot.com. That's sats or satshoot.com. It says, freedom of work, unstoppable freelancing on Noster, join the freedom economy. And then there's a button for, well, actually, it's not a button. It's just a a little pop up. Find freelancers for any job, earn SATS as a freelancer, and then if I go and I say try SATSCHoot, sign is I'm gonna sign in as a client, and then I'm gonna hit log in.
And it doesn't seem to oh, there's a new app available. Okay. So now let's see if okay. It's not letting me log in with the login button. Clearly, all these things have bugs. It's okay. It'll work. It'll it'll be fine. We've just got to actually, we've got to actually give the developers some time to get these bugs out of their way. So if you but if you wanna go give it a shot, sat shoot.com for all of your freelancer needs, whether you want to be a freelancer or you want to hire one to do maybe some logo work or some back end development work. I I'm not exactly sure who's there. I'm gonna be playing with it later on today to see if I can get in and see more about it. But first, Umbrel OS version 1.3.0 has been released with swappable apps, Cloudflare, DNS, factory reset, and more.
Umbrel OS 1.3 brings, all that stuff and more, quote, the official update is now rolling out for Umbrel OS 1.0 plus users on Umbrel Home, Raspberry Pi, and other supported devices. So what is a swappable app? Well, now users can choose which bitcoin node app they want to run, bitcoin node, bitcoin knots, or libra relay, and select preferred Electrum server app, either Electris, Fulcrum, or Electrum X. There's Cloudflare DNS, which is the ability to enable Cloudflare DNS for improved reliability, or you can disable it to inherit DNS settings from your own router.
Factory reset users can now reset their Umbrel in just a few clicks via settings, for for, settings, advanced settings, and then there's a button there for factory reset. There are performance improvements and UI improvements. There's security enhancements. There's app store enhancements, and there's miscellaneous fixes. So this seems like a moderately large upgrade to the Umbrel OS. If you are an Umbrel user, you might wanna go check that out. Last on the list is Robosats version 0.7.3 alpha, lnp2pbotorders, and nostrilorderbooks on Android.
Wow. Okay. So I think this is I I actually think I brought this to you on Saturday. Let's just go ahead and do it though. The release is now available and introduces the ability to fetch orders from lnp2pbotplatform when the user enables noster orders in settings thanks to shared noster order books. Robosats and lnp2pbot are 2 separate platforms for p2p Bitcoin exchange. Both are now publishing their public orders to Noster, so we can now display their orders in our client and this brings a lot of benefits. One of the most direct benefits is that RoboSats users will now have more info when comparing premiums, which will reduce the arbitrage between platforms and increase the general liquidity, said Koalasat.
Additionally, Android users now have the option to enable nostril orders and settings along with a few other fixes. Okay. Well, that'll work. Lnp2pbotordersnowavailableifyouenabledNoster. So the 3rd partyorders are not managed by a Robosat coordinator. Please ensure you are comfortable with the privacy and trust trade offs. That sometimes these things just don't make a whole lot of sense to me. But that's because I don't use these things. I'm I'm I'm not one of these people that really needs to go to, you know, like, really hang around lnp2pbot and have you know, looking at order books and whatnot like that. I I I'm just old an old fuddy duddy that way. I just like to buy my Bitcoin and hold my Bitcoin, and I don't really use any of this stuff. But if you are a user of this, you might wanna go check it out. Now that it's Nostr enabled, that should be pretty interesting.
Okay. I've gone back over to Nostr talk, on flotilla dot social, and I actually have to request access to get into this group. And I don't have an in an invite code from the people in Nostril talk, so I'm not gonna be able to tell you anything about what the hell is going on. However, I appreciate the fact that you can have security checks as to who it is that you let into these these relays or rather these chat rooms. So again, flotilla dot social is like Discord or Slack, and if you want to use use it in that way or use Nostra in that way, then you might wanna give flotilla dot social a go.
I played around with it, in a couple of other instances and I gotta tell you, man, it's kinda smooth. It's it's pretty responsive. It's pretty smooth. However, understand that when I say responsive, that's relative to the Noster network, which is decidedly not as responsive as something like Twitter or any of the other centralized things because it's generally not centralized. And because of that, relays have to go collect a lot more information. It takes time to get stuff done. So but in a relative way, flotilla.social is really responsive and I advise everybody to go out, check it out, and tell my friend, Hoddlebod on Noster, if there's any bugs that you're seeing or if, there's any improvements that you might want to see. Alright.
So that's it. I told you it was gonna be a short show today. Tomorrow's probably gonna be a short show as well, but tomorrow will be episode 999. That will be one of the ultimate, ultimate palindrome shows. Not that it's not that I've got anything special planned. It's just that 999 seems to be one hell of a palindrome, and I will see you on the other side. This has been Bitcoin, and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon. Have a great day.
Good morning. This is David Bennett, and this is Bitcoin and, a podcast where I try to find the edge effect between the worlds of Bitcoin, gaming, permaculture, podcasting, and education to gain a better understanding of all. Edge effect is a concept from ecology describing a greater diversity of life where the edges of 2 systems overlap. While species from either system can be found at the edge, it is important to note there are species in the overlap that exist in neither system, and that is what I seek to uncover. So join me in discovering the variety of things being created as Bitcoin rubs up against other systems. It is 12:48 PM Pacific Standard Time. It's late today on 25th November 2024.
This is episode 998 of Bitcoin and only 2 more to go. 2 more to go until the big one thousand, but this show is probably gonna be a little bit shorter today considering that everybody is on, you know, Thanksgiving break and all. So, let's get into it with MicroStrategy expanding their Bitcoin holdings with 4 no. $5,400,000,000 in purchases. Holy shit. Josh O'Sullivan, Cointelegraph, let's begin with this one. MicroStrategy, a publicly traded business intelligence software firm, reported a substantial expansion of its Bitcoin holdings in a filing today, November 25th, where it disclosed that it has acquired about 55,000 Bitcoin. Again, 55,000 Bitcoin for $5,400,000,000, and they did so between the dates of November 18th and yesterday, 24th, at an average price of $97,862 per coin.
And of course, the minute the news hit, sell the news. Why we're at $94,739. It's amazing how sell the news works. I'm never going to understand it, but there it is. The purchase was funded through the proceeds from the recent equity and debt offerings according to the filing. And the latest purchase has pumped MicroStrategy's total BTC holdings to a massive $386,700 BTC acquired at a cumulative cost of 29 $21,900,000,000 or an average price of $56,761 per coin. The firm's continued buying spree close to BTC's new high near $100,000 suggest that it expects further growth in Bitcoin's value driven by rising institutional adoption and optimism over potential pro crypto legislation under the incoming United States administration of president-elect Donald Trump.
MicroStrategy has used the funds from the private offering of 0% convertible senior notes, which is due 2029, and its ongoing at the market equity program. The notes offering, which finished on November 21st, raised a total of $2,970,000,000 alongside the firm selling 5,597,000 shares under its at the market equity program to generate a further $2,460,000,000 in net proceeds. These funds combined provided the liquidity to support the firm's continued aggressive acquisition of BTC. And as of November 24th, MicroStrategy reported $12,800,000,000 in remaining capacity under the at the market program.
In its form 8 k disclosure, MicroStrategy detailed the use of proprietary performance metric bitcoin yield, which measures the percentage change in the ratio of BTC holdings to assumed diluted shares outstanding. And as of yesterday, November 24th, the company reported a BTC yield of 59.3%, up from 35.2 at the end of the Q3. Put in layman's terms, this metric measures the firm's focus on maximizing shareholder value through its Bitcoin acquisitions and making BTC the primary driver of its financial strategy going forward. Similar Scientific, not to be outdone, said that it has acquired 297 BTC for $29,100,000 between the same dates or essentially November 18th through November 22nd, increasing its total holdings to 1,570 BTC purchased at an average price of $75,000 per coin. The firm expanded its ATM or at the market equity program by a further $50,000,000, doubling its offering capacity to a 100,000,000 with 50,000,000 already generated through gross prots proceeds. And Similar Scientific reported a b or a year to date BTC yield of roughly the same as MicroStrategy, 58.4 percent as of November 22nd, highlighting its focus on using BTC as a treasury asset.
So both of these firms let's see. With MicroStrategy's BTC yield is 59.3%. And remember, their average purchase price is, like, $59,000 per coin. Now we go down here to similar scientific, they have a 58.4% b, BTC yield on a year to date average, but their average purchase price was $75,000. Now think about that. That is a hell of a delta between those two particular average coin purchasing prices, and yet they're almost identical in their BTC yield. That's probably something that we should look at as more and more firms move forward. What it suggests to forms firms moving forward, to me, is that it doesn't matter what you buy the shit at. It does not matter what you buy it at. You're probably going to end up with this KPI metric of 58 anywhere between 58 and, or 55 60% on a BTC year to date yield. It's kind of kind of amazing, honestly.
Alright. Let's get into this one. New Market Capital Launches Battery Finance, the Bitcoin collateralized loan strategy. Okay. This was when I started out the show on Friday with that piece from CNBC, it was these people. And Frank Korva is going to tell us a little bit more about what's going on with it out of Bitcoin Magazine. New Market Capital recently closed the 1st investment deal for its new battery finance loan strategy, which enables borrowers to incorporate Bitcoin into long term financing structures as collateral. On November 7th, Newmarket Capital, an institutional capital manager, and registered investment adviser completed a refinancing for the Bank Street Court Apartment in Old City, Philadelphia, PA or Pennsylvania.
The loan was collateralized by both the building and approximately 20 bitcoin. New Market Capital CEO Andrew Hans, yeah, Hans is excited about not only setting his company's new strategy in motion, but the symbolism of the deal. Quote, it's a building that is located less than half a block away from the First Bank of the United States. Philadelphia has had a lot of firsts and innovations over the years, and we're proud to contribute another one to that list, Hans told Bitcoin Magazine. Battery Finance enables Bitcoin to be used as 10% to 30% of the collateral for loans alongside traditional assets.
To bring this new strategy to life, New Market Capital partnered with 1031 to establish Battery Finance, a majority owned subsidiary of New Market Capital that utilizes bitcoin in financing structures. Unlike other lending companies that let clients borrow against bitcoin with the risk of liquidation in the event that bitcoin's price drops below a certain threshold, new market capital removes that risk and offers loan structures without mark to market trigger. Quote, as lenders, we are constructive on the long term value of bitcoin and comfortable recognizing bitcoin as collateral without mark to market risk, said Hans. Quote, we achieve this by incorporating Bitcoin as a component of a broader collateral package alongside traditional financeable assets.
In this way, we have improved our downside through the introduction of Bitcoin, an uncorrelated element, an asset that has had such a strong history of appreciation over time in the collateral package. Deals that employ this strategy can be structured differently. In some cases, a borrower can use Bitcoin that they're already holding as collateral for a loan, while in other cases, new market capital and the borrower purchase Bitcoin as part of the loan structure. The latter is how the loan for the Bank Street Corp building was structured. Quote, it's a $16,500,000 building, and we offered the building owner a $12,500,000 loan, explained Hans. Quote, the use of proceeds was to pay off the existing financing, which was $9,000,000 to provide them with approximately $2,000,000 of capital expenditures for certain improvements to the property that they wanted to make. With the remaining $1,500,000, we purchased just shy of 20 Bitcoin as part of our combined collateral package, end quote.
Unlike traditional loans, which often lock borrowers in with re prepayment penalties or a make whole, the Bank Street Corp Financing can be paid off at any time with no penalties. To allow for this outcome, the borrower and the lender align to share appreciation on the upside from the Bitcoin over the life of the loan. The longer the loan is outstanding, the greater the share of Bitcoin appreciation that vest for the borrower, incentivizing borrowers to take long term views on Bitcoin. Although the loan can be repaid at any time in the building released, the earliest that the Bitcoin could be wound down is 4 years in line with Bitcoin's 4 year rhythm.
The loan carries a single digit interest rate and has a maturity of 10 years. Hans, a Bitcoiner himself, understands that other Bitcoiners have low time preference that they prioritize future economic well-being over more immediate gratification. However, he acknowledges that there are limits to this approach, which is why New Market Capital created the battery finance strategy. Quote, the lowest time preference is not feasible for humans because we have a finite life. There's a point there's a point where we want to accomplish things with our lives. We want to grow our business or start a new business or just do the things that we all have a passion for, like opening up a maker space or a brewery or a bookstore, whatever the case might be. If you're just hodling the bitcoin, you're deferring those dreams, he added.
By offering this financial tool, we can essentially serve as a mechanism to transform those time preferences to bring forward the appreciation of the bitcoin by offering a significant amount of financing to accomplish whatever the real world goals borrowers have, he said. Battery Finance is currently focused on working with borrowers who are interested in acquiring or refinancing commercial properties. So not not homes and stuff like that. Not yet, anyway. Quote, for the time being, we're investing or inviting interest around loans that are, generally speaking, 10,000,000 to $30,000,000, which include 10 to 30 percent Bitcoin with 70% to 90% traditionally financeable income producing assets, explained Hans. And it's a tool for both asset owners that want to redenominate some of the equity in their existing portfolio into Bitcoin. And it's also a tool for Bitcoiners who want to obtain stable long term financing supported in part by their Bitcoin to acquire assets in the real world.
This way, they can generate income and accomplish their goals while remaining invested in bitcoin, end quote. In time, battery finance plans to service a broader range of customers. Yeah. Hopefully, they'll get into home loans and get some of this nonsense out of the way so that we can actually have, you know, homes again. I quote, we see broad applicability for this lending structure, including over time, to people that are at different phases of their Bitcoin savings journey. I hope that these kinds of products will develop into solutions that enable people to do things like finance a house or an automobile with their Bitcoin. Yeah. That's gonna have to happen, guys. Anyway, this is Frank Korver writing about the a little bit more in-depth about that piece that I brought you on Friday at the very beginning of the show. It was, it was mister Hans talking to, the guys over at, oh, with Squawk Box, I think, Joe Kernan's outfit. Anyway, if this gets into a situation where general retail can take advantage of it.
Wow. Because as if you didn't hear it. What they're doing is they're providing a loan and part of that loan goes to actually buy bitcoin in which case that bitcoin is also set as an asset against the loan itself. So as the bitcoin appreciates, that loan becomes less and less treacherous to service as time goes on, if and only if, of course, Bitcoin continues to rise. But since they've put a 4 year timescale on when you can actually liquidate the Bitcoin or somehow or another extinguish that portion of the collateral, then chances are really good you're going to see upside potential on these loans. So if instead of 10 to $30,000,000 as being sort of like the the boundaries that you can enter into this kind of financing deal, if that comes down to, you know, a few 100000, you know, half a1000000, 1,000,000, then if that's if, god, that's if real estate prices still stay as elevated as we've seen them. Then all of a sudden, you've got the entire retail market that's looking to buy a house that could take advantage of them making the loan, overextending that or bait not overextending the loan, but making more of a loan than it cost to purchase the house and then putting the rest into Bitcoin, which you then hold for 4 years and then service the debt as a normal as a normal mortgage.
Is that would be interesting to see because at that point, you've got you've got an you've got the outlet to allow retail into the market, but still I don't know. It's there's gonna be I I think it's going to produce a lot more BTC purchases if they do that. If they don't do that, that would honestly be kinda sad if they stay well. Oh, you know, plebs can't take advantage because plebs, generally speaking, are not gonna be doing financing between $10,030,000,000. That's for accredited investor type people, but whatever.
Let's get into this one. Cantor Fitzgerald, we're now doing this one from Decrypt. It's written by Vince d De Aquino. Cantor Fitzgerald is planning a $2,000,000,000 Bitcoin lending program via Tether. Right? So we're still talking about Bitcoin lending, but this time we're talking about stable coins. I've warned you about these things. Maybe Tether and USDC, I I can think of those as possibly being a little bit safer types of things to utilize if you're gonna have to utilize them. But understand, you're going to see a plethora of stablecoins jump into the market, and most of them are going to be just straight up scams. And you're going to lose your money if if you start playing around with it. So if you don't have to use stable coins, then don't. But Cantor Fitzgerald is going to do it.
The US Financial Services and Bond Trading Firm is reportedly discussing a multibillion dollar Bitcoin backed lending program with the help of Tether. The proposed program, excuse me, the proposed program would allow clients to borrow dollars using Bitcoin as collateral. Initially, the operation would begin with a $2,000,000,000 allotment, though it has the potential to expand as crypto sees more adoption, according to a Bloomberg report on Saturday. It's yet another step towards a symbiotic relationship between Wall Street and the crypto industry, which has deepened this year, particularly as an expected transition in crypto policy comes to the fore as Trump prepares to settle into the White House.
Bitcoin lending program, which is still in its early stages, would likely include multiple financial contributors alongside Tether, and Kantor is already recruiting staff for the initiative. The move comes as Kantor's chief, Howard Lutnick, was nominated as commerce secretary under president-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday and is reportedly preparing to divest his interest in the firm. Yeah. You'd have to. Otherwise, you're going to have ethics violations that you don't want to see. In a prepared statement following the nomination, Letnik said he intends to do so to comply with United States government ethics rules. There you go. Letnik's depart departure from key roles applies to his positions at Cantor, BGC, and something called Newmark. As Lutnick prepares to depart Cantor, pending senate confirmation, he plans to hand over the firm's Tether relationship to colleagues.
His son, Brandon, is cited as a possible candidate, per the Bloomberg report. It's It's an ethics violation, guys. Brandon previously interned at Tether Swiss operations and is now at Cantor, and he is said to have counted gold bars backing Tether's $660,000,000 gold backed token, which is called Tether Gold, during his internship. Oh, they're handing it off. He was an intern, ladies and gentlemen. He's ready to roll, I guess. Quote, the ratings assigned to Cantor, BGC, and Newmark Incorporate key person risk associated with Lutnick given his majority voting control, market relationships, close involvement in many other aspects of the businesses, and outsized influence on the firm's respective strategic directions, a commentary from Fitch Ratings claims.
Cantor already manages most of Tether's $132,000,000,000 in assets through its custody business, earning tens of 1,000,000 of dollars in annual fees. Notably, Kantor also required a 5% stake in Tether valued at $600,000,000 according to sources cited by The Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal report cites a statement issued from Lutnick's selection as commerce secretary where a spokesperson maintained that Tether's relationship with Kantor was entirely professional based on managing reserves, diminishing suggest or dismissing suggestions that Lutnick's political connections could influence regulatory actions.
The same report quotes Lutnick's statement at the Bitcoin conference in Nashville in July where he described his first meeting with Tether CFO Giancarlo Devesini. I basically told him the movie line. I said, show me the money, And we found every penny, and they had every penny, end quote. These statements point to what Tether had been struggling with over the years, proving that it does indeed have the reserves backing its stablecoin issuance following years, and I'm talking years, of skepticism from industry insiders and outsiders alike. A UN report released in January identified Tether's USDT as a prefer preferred choice for money launderers. That's right. While the US Treasury Department has asked Congress for new powers to block stablecoin transactions linked to illicit activities.
Tether has repeatedly refuted those claims, saying it instead provides support to law enforcement officials and policymakers to mitigate the use of its stablecoin for illicit activities. So there you go. Cantor Fitzgerald, god. Commerce secretary Lutnick is at the head of that thing right now. Of Course, he's not commerce secretary yet. He's gotta actually be confirmed. But these ties worry me, and it's not just Lutnick. I mean, it's Liberty Financial with Trump. It's like it is a whole basket of of potential ethics violations that are going to be scrutinized. No matter whether or not they're above board, it doesn't matter.
The the enemies of these people, of this administration, are definitely going to have a freaking heyday with shit like this. I mean and my my issue here really is this notion that he's gonna hand the whole thing off to his son, Brandon, an intern at some kind of Swiss company, and that that's going to make it okay. And, honestly, it's not going to make it okay. It's still going to be a situation where ethics probes are going to be all over these people to the point that they may not even be able to actually perform their functions. But as usual, we'll have to see. But right now, let's run numbers.
West Texas Intermediate Oil is down 3 points. Apparently, there is a ceasefire deal on the table between Israel and Palestine or Hamas or whoever it is that they're fighting today. Brent Norsey is likewise down 2.7% to $73.15. Natural gas doing what it does, it's going in the opposite direction. It's 5.8% of the upside and now stands at $3.31 per 1,000 cubic feet. Gasoline is down almost 3 full points, back to $2 a gallon. Gold struggling 3 points to the downside leaves it at $2,627.60 per ounce. Silver is down 3%. Platinum is down 3%, but copper is up a half. Palladium is down over 4% today. Biggest winner in ag is coffee, 1 and a half percent to the upside. Biggest loser looks like it's going to be wheat. 1 and a half to the downside. Live cattle is down a quarter, but lean hogs are up almost a half.
Feeder cattle, likewise, up almost a half. The Dow is doing well. 1% to the upside. S and P, point 3% to the upside. Nasdaq is up point 14, and the S and P Mini is up a point and a half. And as we see, Bitcoin is struggling probably because, for whatever reason, Michael Saylor bought a shit ton of Bitcoin. Because it's always sell the news, isn't it? Price $94,970 per coin leaves us with a paltry $1,880,000,000,000 market cap, and we can only get 35.9 ounces of shiny metal rocks with our 1 Bitcoin, of which there are 19,787,167.99 of.
And fees are minimal. 0.07 BTC taken in fees on average on a per block basis, and there are a mere 88 blocks. And it was down to, like, 39 blocks over the weekend. I was I was actually surprised and almost waiting for the mempools to clear, but they haven't. They've gone back up. There are 241,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear at high priority rates of 5 satoshis per vbyte. Low priority is gonna get you in at 1 satoshi per v byte. And mining hash rate is 754.8 x of hashes per second. It was up to almost 800 over the weekend, so we've come down quite a bit from there. And from Friday's show, go go Gensler, that was Bitcoin and episode 997.
I got itsy bitsy hodl with 5,000 sat says, hey, man. The guy in the clip is Andrew Hans of Battery Finance. It's a 1031 fund backed venture, which is using Bitcoin as collateral, merging of traditional finance and Bitcoin. Thank you, Itsy Bitsy HODL. I appreciate the information on that. FOMO Medtronic with 1,001 SAT says absolutely nothing. Graham with a 1000 says, thank you, sir. No. Thank you. Mutum 8 with a thousand says, money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods procured and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. And that is a direct quote from Anne Rand, most likely the money speech from Atlas Shrugged, if I had any if I had to guess.
God's death with 537 says thank you, sir. No. Thank you. Pies to play before 20 says thank you, sir. No. Thank you. And that's gonna do it for the weather report. Welcome to part 2 of the news you can use. Before we begin, I wanna ask you guys a favor. If you are out there and you appreciate ranchers and what they do, given you know, basically making sure that you've got high quality animal protein and animal fats on your table to feed yourself and your family, then do me a favor. Either give me a boostogram in in, for the show and make a statement as to, you know, like words of encouragement to ranchers because tomorrow night, I will be addressing a roomful of ranchers at the Whitman County Cattlemen's Association annual dinner. I've been invited to speak specifically on what's going on with the King Ranch.
If you don't know what's going on with the King Ranch, I invite you to go, listen to episode 943 of Bitcoin and entitled Ranch Wars, the King Ranch, where I talked to a lawyer for the King Ranch about their battle with the state of Washington's attorney general's office, the Department of Ecology, as well as the Department of Natural Resources. They're trying to destroy their multigenerational, 7 decade old ranch, and they're doing a pretty good job of it. So I've been asked to deliver remarks about that battle and what exactly is going on. I'd like to end that talk with a a few things from the plebs out there that let these guys know that they're not alone and that what they're doing, for us is is actually appreciated.
So either on Noster, hit me up. I've got a note out there that's requesting the very same thing. So go to my profile and you'll you'll, you know, scroll down and you'll see it there. Say, you know, because I wanna be able to give these guys a few remarks, and then at the end, I wanna be able to tell them, hey, here's some people that you've never met that you don't know, and here's what they're saying about how they appreciate what it is that you do, because everybody needs some encouragement now and again. So if you would do that, I would I would definitely appreciate that. Okay. Let's get into this one from the block. Jason Shubnell tells us something that's kinda weird about, what's going on with Bitmain.
Apparently, the United States customs has halted Bitmain ASIC imports amid speculation over sanctions according to a report. This doesn't actually sound very good, honestly. US Customs and Border Protection, at the request of the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, has been holding imports of Bitmain Antminer s 21 and t 21 series a six at ports across the country for up to 2 months. 7 US based mining companies have not been provided a clear reason for the delays or a timeline for the resolution, the report said. One source told BlockSpace that US Customs and Border Protection is charging daily holding fees, which have exceeded $200,000 for some firms.
The move does not appear to target other manufacturers like MicroBT or Canaan Miners. Bitmain is the largest ASIC designer and mining hardware manufacturer in the world at the time, and BlockSpace said industry speculation suggests that the holdups may be linked to scrutiny over chips supplied by Xiamen Softco, a company under investigation for potential US sanctions violations. Softco chips like the CV1835 are used certain amp miner models including the s 19. Softco was founded in 2019 by McCreazon, also the cofounder and CEO of Bitmain. Taiwan Semiconductor stopped supplying chips to Softco when the US Commerce Department began investigating whether TSMC had provided chips to Huawei, the information reported in October.
Oh, good lord. China based Huawei has been under US sanctions since 2020 due to national security concerns. And while no direct evidence links the importing halts to these investigations, block space source believes that f the FCC and the CBP may be inspecting shipments for restricted components. The block reached out to CBP for comment. The situation highlights growing tensions at the intersection of US trade policies and tech regulations. China based companies like Bitmain have dominated the mining hardware market, but president-elect Donald Trump has vowed to make the US a Bitcoin mining powerhouse, quote, it will be the policy of my administration to keep 100% of all the Bitcoin the United States government currently currently holds or acquires into the future.
This will serve, in effect, as the core of the strategic national Bitcoin stockpiled. It's been taken away from you. Well, that Bitcoin was actually taken away from several people, so I don't know exactly what you're talking about. Here's my that's the end of the article, but here's one of the concerns that I have. Although it's probably unfounded, but think about this. Are they inspecting these machines, or are they installing backdoors into these machines? They've been held these miners from Bitmain have been held at ports for 2 months, and they're charging the companies, like, $200,000 to hold them. So that's great. I can just decree that I'm gonna hold your shit and then charge you a holding fee for it. But while they're there, is it possible that they might be deinstalling certain chips from the motherboard of these miners and reinstalling chips that have some kind of backdoor, some kind of, yeah, like, surveillance tech attached to it. Who knows?
They but it may be unfounded because microbt and Canaan miners seem to be not affected. So maybe this whole thing is above board. Still, though, I think it's bullshit that they're charging the companies a holding fee for miners that they're not releasing. That's just another just just another way that government gets in our way. Okay. From my friend, Hoddlebod, he has released Flotilla, but this one is a write up from no bs bitcoin.com. Let's see what they have to say about what Flotilla is. It is a Discord like Nostril client for relay based communities. Okay? So that's the definition. Quote, I am pleased to announce the release of 0.1.0 of Flotilla, a new client for communities, announced hodelbond.
This project began as a NIP 29 client. And after 3 pull requests, lots of discussion, a podcast, and partial implementation, I decided to go my own way, said the developer. Flotilla does not support NIP 29 like chachichat or chachi.chat does. However, both clients offer features such as chat, join request, group metadata, membership management, moderation, and other related functionalities. Quote, the basic unit of a NIP 29 group is a random group ID string while the basic unit of a flotilla group is a relay itself, explained the developer in a blog post. Quote, I believe this design difference emerged in part of what we were attempting to build.
NIP 29 groups tend to be more Telegram like where groups function more like chat rooms and users join each one individually. On Flotilla on Flotilla, groups function more like Discord servers or Slack workspaces and users join an entire group of chat rooms at once, he added. If you want to try Flotilla, check out the following groups, nostertalk.orgorbucket. Let's actually, I'm gonna go to, nostertalk.org just to see what that thing looks like. Hold on. Let's let it come up. It may take a while. Time to get some coffee. And so if you wanna go check out flotilla dot social, the the actual flotilla itself, it is flotilla dot social, that is flotilla.social.
And Nostertalk isn't actually coming it's coming through, but it's not actually making any posts. So I'll come back to it and see if, if I let it spin for a little bit that, maybe it can collect me up some notes as to what's going on in that particular group, which is a relay based group. Okay? That's what's really important about Flotilla is that it's all about the relay and a stand alone relay that just on you know, basically is the collection point for all the people that wanna be part of a specific group. And I I honestly think that that kind of firewalling against different, relays and just having a hey.
I I can spin up a relay on my start 9 and just start a group. To me, this makes a lot of sense. It it it just does. Okay. So sat shoot has been released. It's version 0.2.0. It is a nip 60 wallet and nip 61 nutzaps. SatShoot is a free and open source freelance marketplace built on the Nostra protocol using the Nostra development kit. It allows users to hire freelancers for any type of job or earn SATs by offering their own freelance services. So I guess this is a replacement for Fiverr. SatShoot version 0.2.0 has been released with NIP 60 and NIP 61 in rendering of Nostra URIs announced 5.
And I don't know who 5 is, but like I said, this is probably a replacement for Fiverr. Quote, need a hand in development? Have technical issues to sort out? Post it on sat shoot, then share as a short text note. Tap into Global Nostra Talent to get your job done by the best bidders. All feedback welcome. Keep pushing for the freedom economy, added the developer. Here's the key features. There's no middleman. Your Nostra Keys, your contracts, your deals, your servers. It respects your relays of choice, and then it says something about c outbox model. There's web of trust, which uses your Nostra based social network to fight, scammers and spammers, build an unstoppable reputation on Nostra as a freelancer.
So it does look like this is a direct replacement for Fiverr using the Nostra protocol, so you might wanna give it a shot here. Let me see. It is satshoot.com. I'm gonna go over to this one. Yeah. Satsh0ot.com. That's sats or satshoot.com. It says, freedom of work, unstoppable freelancing on Noster, join the freedom economy. And then there's a button for, well, actually, it's not a button. It's just a a little pop up. Find freelancers for any job, earn SATS as a freelancer, and then if I go and I say try SATSCHoot, sign is I'm gonna sign in as a client, and then I'm gonna hit log in.
And it doesn't seem to oh, there's a new app available. Okay. So now let's see if okay. It's not letting me log in with the login button. Clearly, all these things have bugs. It's okay. It'll work. It'll it'll be fine. We've just got to actually, we've got to actually give the developers some time to get these bugs out of their way. So if you but if you wanna go give it a shot, sat shoot.com for all of your freelancer needs, whether you want to be a freelancer or you want to hire one to do maybe some logo work or some back end development work. I I'm not exactly sure who's there. I'm gonna be playing with it later on today to see if I can get in and see more about it. But first, Umbrel OS version 1.3.0 has been released with swappable apps, Cloudflare, DNS, factory reset, and more.
Umbrel OS 1.3 brings, all that stuff and more, quote, the official update is now rolling out for Umbrel OS 1.0 plus users on Umbrel Home, Raspberry Pi, and other supported devices. So what is a swappable app? Well, now users can choose which bitcoin node app they want to run, bitcoin node, bitcoin knots, or libra relay, and select preferred Electrum server app, either Electris, Fulcrum, or Electrum X. There's Cloudflare DNS, which is the ability to enable Cloudflare DNS for improved reliability, or you can disable it to inherit DNS settings from your own router.
Factory reset users can now reset their Umbrel in just a few clicks via settings, for for, settings, advanced settings, and then there's a button there for factory reset. There are performance improvements and UI improvements. There's security enhancements. There's app store enhancements, and there's miscellaneous fixes. So this seems like a moderately large upgrade to the Umbrel OS. If you are an Umbrel user, you might wanna go check that out. Last on the list is Robosats version 0.7.3 alpha, lnp2pbotorders, and nostrilorderbooks on Android.
Wow. Okay. So I think this is I I actually think I brought this to you on Saturday. Let's just go ahead and do it though. The release is now available and introduces the ability to fetch orders from lnp2pbotplatform when the user enables noster orders in settings thanks to shared noster order books. Robosats and lnp2pbot are 2 separate platforms for p2p Bitcoin exchange. Both are now publishing their public orders to Noster, so we can now display their orders in our client and this brings a lot of benefits. One of the most direct benefits is that RoboSats users will now have more info when comparing premiums, which will reduce the arbitrage between platforms and increase the general liquidity, said Koalasat.
Additionally, Android users now have the option to enable nostril orders and settings along with a few other fixes. Okay. Well, that'll work. Lnp2pbotordersnowavailableifyouenabledNoster. So the 3rd partyorders are not managed by a Robosat coordinator. Please ensure you are comfortable with the privacy and trust trade offs. That sometimes these things just don't make a whole lot of sense to me. But that's because I don't use these things. I'm I'm I'm not one of these people that really needs to go to, you know, like, really hang around lnp2pbot and have you know, looking at order books and whatnot like that. I I I'm just old an old fuddy duddy that way. I just like to buy my Bitcoin and hold my Bitcoin, and I don't really use any of this stuff. But if you are a user of this, you might wanna go check it out. Now that it's Nostr enabled, that should be pretty interesting.
Okay. I've gone back over to Nostr talk, on flotilla dot social, and I actually have to request access to get into this group. And I don't have an in an invite code from the people in Nostril talk, so I'm not gonna be able to tell you anything about what the hell is going on. However, I appreciate the fact that you can have security checks as to who it is that you let into these these relays or rather these chat rooms. So again, flotilla dot social is like Discord or Slack, and if you want to use use it in that way or use Nostra in that way, then you might wanna give flotilla dot social a go.
I played around with it, in a couple of other instances and I gotta tell you, man, it's kinda smooth. It's it's pretty responsive. It's pretty smooth. However, understand that when I say responsive, that's relative to the Noster network, which is decidedly not as responsive as something like Twitter or any of the other centralized things because it's generally not centralized. And because of that, relays have to go collect a lot more information. It takes time to get stuff done. So but in a relative way, flotilla.social is really responsive and I advise everybody to go out, check it out, and tell my friend, Hoddlebod on Noster, if there's any bugs that you're seeing or if, there's any improvements that you might want to see. Alright.
So that's it. I told you it was gonna be a short show today. Tomorrow's probably gonna be a short show as well, but tomorrow will be episode 999. That will be one of the ultimate, ultimate palindrome shows. Not that it's not that I've got anything special planned. It's just that 999 seems to be one hell of a palindrome, and I will see you on the other side. This has been Bitcoin, and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon. Have a great day.
